Connections

by Hilary Bailey

  “Could do more harm than good,” Joe said gloomily.

  “Quixotic’s the word,” Dominic said grimly.

  I wasn’t depressed. I said encouragingly, “Sometimes women can be very intuitive. They can put things together from very tiny clues.”

  “You don’t know Fleur Stockley,” Dominic said. He hit the table, hard. “This table’s more intuitive than her.”

  “She’s doing it for you,” I said encouragingly. It was very much in my interest that she found out as much as possible – and then told me.

  Dominic was still upset. Then his mobile went and he answered it. “Hullo, ducks. Are you? OK – I’ve got that. See you soon.” He put the phone back in his pocket. “That’s her – speaking from the phone in the Rolls. She’s gone to stay with the family in Eaton Square. She couldn’t say much, in front of the others.” He paused, “That’s it, then. Fleur Stockley, crime buster. I wish she wouldn’t.”

  “She’ll be all right,” I assured him. “She’s staying with her family.”

  He looked at me cynically. “You know better than I do what those people are like. You threaten their interests and you end up on an island, or in a private loony bin.”

  “I’d better go,” I said. “Keep in touch.”

  “Right,” said Joe Carter. He didn’t like or trust me. I didn’t care. But Dominic stood up and shook hands gravely, like a little gentleman.

  I went over to get my other car from the lock-up at Waterloo and drove down to Kent. I was thinking that this situation might smoke a bit and go out like so many did, or suddenly burst into flame. Sometimes you just couldn’t tell. My own priority was to make myself scarce for as long as necessary.

  Twenty-Six

  The party in the drawing-room at Eaton Square later that evening consisted of Fleur and Sophia, Ben and Valentine Keith. They had had dinner together. Fleur’s father had not been there. He was still at the bank.

  Sophia leaned back in her chair, allowing herself to look a little weary. “I’m so glad you came, Fleur,” she said. “And Dickie’s delighted to know you’re here too. He was upset at first, when you disappeared. Then he said you reminded him of himself when he was younger: impulsive and full of ideas.”

  Fleur did not know how to reply, but Ben responded smoothly, “That’s Fleur. Impulsive but always well-meaning.”

  Fleur smiled but inwardly she was very ill at ease. The ugly story involving her father on that night in Gordon Mews was haunting her. If it was her father. And then there was Tallinn. And some crazy plot to kill Dominic and Joe. She didn’t understand anything. She hardly knew why she was at Eaton Square. No one would tell her anything here. She would not be able to affect anything, either. She’d come because the alternative, hunkering down at Adelaide House and pretending nothing was happening, seemed worse. What she really wanted, she realised, was to prove that her father had not been at the mews house, had not protected the man who had assaulted Vanessa and was therefore not guilty of anything.

  Valentine was looking at his watch. “I said I’d meet Dickie here, later. I don’t suppose he mentioned when he’d be back.”

  “He didn’t, actually,” Sophia said. “I don’t suppose he’ll be long. It’s after ten. Why don’t you have another drink while you’re waiting?”

  “It does seem late. What’s keeping him, do you think?” Fleur asked, feeling foolish. As if Sophia would tell her – as if Sophia would know – as if the answer mattered.

  “Probably talking to someone in the USA,” Sophia said equably. “Business is a great strain these days, with so many time zones involved. When I was a little girl Father would have breakfast with us, go out to his office at ten and return at five to spend some time with us and dine with Mother and friends – oh, it is very different.”

  But at that moment Fleur’s father came in, kissed his wife, greeted Fleur and the others. He poured himself a whisky, and looked at Fleur. “I hope you’ll stay a little longer this time,” he observed, smiling. “Or shall we have to lock all the doors?”

  This was a joke, but Fleur felt unaccountably alarmed. The sheer thought of being trapped at Eaton Square terrified her.

  “I told Sophia how like me as a young man you seem to be,” Jethro went on. “It must be genetic.”

  “I don’t think Fleur has quite your gift for finance,” Ben said.

  “Who knows?” Jethro said.

  There was a silence as the other people in the room considered this statement. Because Jethro was controlling the drawing-room like an actor on stage, no one spoke for a moment. Then Sophia said, “Are you tired, darling?”

  “Tired – no,” he said. “But I have some more calls to make. I’ll go to the study. Valentine – you needn’t stay, but drop in to the study for a word before you go. Ben, old chap – goodnight – good to see you again.” To Fleur he said, “I’m sorry to depart like this. I hope we’ll meet at breakfast, for a chat.”

  Ben, at first by implication included in the invitation to Fleur was now, by implication again, excluded. Dickie Jethro had bade him farewell.

  Valentine, ever sensitive to his uncle’s desires, stood up and said, “I’ll be off – Ben, can I drop you somewhere?”

  Ben paused for a second, to give Sophia a chance to interject, then said easily, “Chelsea OK for you?”

  “Sure,” Valentine said. “I’ll just go and see Dickie for a moment.”

  Ben came over and kissed Fleur, “I’ll ring in the morning,” he said. “Have a lovely sleep.”

  Fleur didn’t ask who he was going to stay with. It crossed her mind Chelsea wasn’t his real destination. He would just get out of the car in fashionable Chelsea, then make his way back from there to unfashionable Cray Hill.

  “You won’t be working tomorrow, will you?” Sophia asked Fleur “We can do something nice. What about some shopping?”

  Fleur heard a telephone ring. “I said I’d see Jess at the office tomorrow morning. I’ll be free after that.”

  “It sounds like a wonderful job,” Sophia observed. “Have you found anything yet?”

  “Ben’s done something rather good,” Fleur said. “You explain, Ben.”

  Ben did so. Valentine still did not appear. The telephone rang twice more. A kind of uneasiness developed as Ben went on waiting for Valentine to return, Sophia waited for both of them to take their leave and the far-off sound of ringing phones continued. Fleur felt tired. Watching Sophia closely, she thought she saw tension beneath her calm manner. There was something ragged and difficult about the situation, she thought, and even Sophia, with all her training, couldn’t quite smooth it over.

  Ben, busking, had outlined the plot of his script and run out of material. He said, “I really ought to go. Would you tell Valentine when he gets back?”

  At that moment Valentine entered the room and said, “Something’s come up, Ben. I’m frightfully sorry—”

  “Don’t worry,” Ben said. “I’ll get a cab.”

  Valentine left the room and, as Ben was saying goodbye, Henry Jones entered and said, “Good evening, Sophia. How are you?”

  Sophia told him, “Now, Henry, don’t stand on ceremony. Do what you want to do and disappear, straight into the study. Can I get anything brought to you?”

  “Some coffee would be very nice, thank you.”

  As soon as Fleur and Sophia were alone Sophia stood up and stretched. She rang the bell, saying, “My goodness. What a lot of coming and going.” The muted sound of the phone reached them again. Sophia ordered coffee to be taken to the study, then said to Fleur, “I think I’ll go up, if you don’t mind. It’s been a long day.” In the doorway she turned and smiled. “Don’t forget your breakfast date with Dickie. And remember – shopping in the afternoon.”

  “I remember. Goodnight, Sophia,” said Fleur. Not long afterwards she went to bed herself.

  In her large and impeccable room she had a shower and cleaned her teeth, then lay on her satin-covered bed, her mind drifting. Earlier she had rung Je
ss and left a message saying where she was. She had tried Dominic and Joe’s flat, but no one had answered. Dominic’s mobile phone was off. What were they doing now?

  The attitude of near-triumphalism she had noted in Barbados was not here in this house. It was not just London, the dark and cold of Britain. What was it? Sophia was unnerved, there were many phone calls, many people coming and going at night. Sleep swept over her. She woke some hours later, got under the covers and fell asleep again.

  Dickie Jethro came into the breakfast room where Fleur sat alone at eight the next morning. He looked brisk in casual clothes, brown corduroys and a sweater. He bent over her and kissed her cheek, sat down and shouted, “Philomena!” The housekeeper was already coming in. “Bacon – an egg – sausages,” he ordered.

  She looked at him sternly. “Sir Richard—” she said.

  “Madam’s asleep upstairs,” he told her. “So only you and I will know.” He leaned back in his chair. “Sometimes a man needs a proper breakfast and to forget what doctors say.”

  “Did you work very late last night?” Fleur asked.

  “Late enough for an old man,” he told her. “I’d have laughed when I was twenty-five. Then again, at twenty-five I wouldn’t have been trying to raise three million in cash at short notice.”

  “Gosh,” said Fleur. “To put in a bag and give to …?”

  “Clients,” he announced, “can be very difficult.” He smiled. “Don’t mention this at dinner tonight. Peter Strauss, my partner, is coming with his wife. Roughly put, he’s the banker and I’m the investor. Unlike US investment banks, British merchant banks have depositors. Peter watches over them. So Peter’s the conserver and I’m the creator. It’s a natural human division, but not necessarily without its conflicts. One thing is, he can’t stand the clients asking for their own money. Deep down he believes it belongs to the bank. So don’t give him a shock over the smoked salmon. That’s what we’ll be eating because it’s almost the only thing he likes.”

  The housekeeper brought in his plate and he tucked in. “Takes me back,” he said. “When I was a little boy my grandfather was still working in the docks. He’d leave the house at six in the morning and I’d get up and have the breakfast he’d cook for both of us. I can still remember his big boots standing in the kitchen ready to put on. Huge boots with steel toe-caps. His father was a farm labourer. You’re from peasant stock, Fleur.”

  “How did you get out?” she asked.

  “Dad had an office job in the shipyards,” he told her. “I went into a high street bank, then into an investment bank. When Maggie got elected in 1979 I was at Devere Hatton, a conservative culture, slow and stodgy. Then it all took off, and, good for me, I’d just bought into Strauss Jethro Smith. You’ve heard of the Big Bang?” He was eating rapidly as he talked.

  “Yes,” said Fleur.

  “It made me,” he told her. “And I can truthfully say that, at a time when the competition’s overextended, Strauss Jethro Smith is still sound as a nut.” He looked at her sharply. “There’s a hole where the next Jethro of Strauss Jethro Smith ought to be.”

  Fleur laughed. “I’m not the person. The last firm I had went bust,” she said.

  “Almost. You have to go through it once. It’s a rite of passage. There are very few top businessmen in this country who haven’t felt the ground shaking beneath their feet at least once. That’s how we do it, for ourselves and the country. Take risks – that’s the game. The only one that’s worthwhile.”

  The housekeeper came in and told him Henry Jones was waiting for him in the car outside. He got to his feet. “I’ll see you at dinner tonight,” he said.

  Fleur poured herself more coffee. Her father seemed in good spirits today, she thought. Last night’s crisis, if there had been one, must have been resolved. Had he just offered her a job and a share of a merchant bank just then, or not?

  She stood up and went to Camera Shake, arriving before Jess. She tried Dominic’s mobile, still off, and then their flat. No one answered. There should have been someone in, asleep, at nine on Saturday morning, she thought. So had either of them slept there the previous night?

  Jess arrived, hair flying. “I showed those pictures of August Tallinn to Dominic and Joe,” Fleur reported. “They said he was the man who beat up their friend.”

  As she spoke the phone went and it was Sophia, naming a place for lunch and suggesting she bring her colleague with her. Jess agreed to come along and Sophia said, “Good – I’ll book for all three of us, then.”

  “She wants to fix you up,” said Jess.

  “I know. There’s a dinner party tonight. The bank’s chairman is coming.”

  “Try to suggest he invests in a film,” Jess said. “What are you doing back at Eaton Square anyway? I thought it was all over between you, when you took French leave from Barbados?”

  Fleur knew she couldn’t tell Jess the whole story of what she was doing at Eaton Square, nor about the stranger, Sam Hope, who had turned up in the pub. Jess was married to Adrian, Adrian was a journalist and Fleur sensed that Jess, however much she promised, would not be able to keep quiet about it all. Whatever the truth was, the last thing they all needed at this moment was a journalist digging for a story.

  She only told Jess, “I think they’re still trying to adopt me. I don’t think it’s any good – I’m too old. If they want an orphan they should go to a children’s home and find someone who really needs it.”

  During the morning Fleur made two further attempts to contact Dominic and Joe, continued to receive no answer and became increasingly worried. The man, Hope, had suggested people were out to hurt them. Had someone already done it? Were they in hospital, or worse? Or had Hope dragged them off somewhere himself? She wasn’t sure what to do. If Dominic and Joe were in hiding, reporting them missing was not what she ought to do. But if they were in trouble, she needed to get help.

  Finally, Dominic called and said, “We’re not at home. Listen – I thought my mobile was on. But be careful what you say on it.”

  She had to be guarded anyway because Jess was nearby in Debs’ tiny bathroom getting ready to go out to lunch.

  “Why did you go to Eaton Square?” he asked.

  “I’m trying to help,” she told him.

  “I wish you – well, be very careful. Fleur. I don’t know when we’ll meet again. We might have to go away, keep moving for a bit.”

  “Where’s Jason?” she asked.

  “Here with me. Look – I’m really sorry … Are you crying?”

  “No,” she said.

  “Yes you are … I’m in touch with the man we met last night. I’m sure we can get this sorted soon.”

  “You bloody can’t,” she said. “How can you? I love you.”

  “I’ve got to go. I love you too,” he said and broke the connection.

  Jess came screaming out of the bathroom, comb in hand. “That was Dominic, wasn’t it? You said you loved him. You’re mad.”

  Fleur told her, “It’s more complicated than you think.”

  “Oh yeah?” Jess said aggressively. “Explain why.”

  Fleur could not. “Let’s just go and have this lunch,” she said.

  Jess wouldn’t leave it alone. In the taxi to Knightsbridge she said, “What’s going on? How come suddenly it’s Dominic? Is he in trouble? Why? Come to that, why are you at Eaton Square? There’s something going on, isn’t there? What’s happening?”

  “It’s a mess,” Fleur told her.

  “If Dominic Floyd’s involved it’s bound to be. People like that are always trouble. And if you stick around you’ll be in a mess, too.”

  “It was so straightforward with Ben,” Fleur said angrily. “All I had to do was put my flat up as security for the business and then one day find him gone and the office besieged with creditors. No trouble there, of course.”

  “So you solved it by taking up with a street person,” Jess retorted. “So – why are you at Eaton Square?”

  They were
getting close to their destination and Fleur changed the subject. “You can’t say Sophia’s not being nice. After all, if she has children of her own she’ll want a big chunk of Jethro for them. It’s still a harem situation in those circles – lots of marriages and all the women thinking about the prospects for their own offspring. Or a medieval court where everybody wants to get to the throne.”

  In the restaurant, a smiling Sophia greeted them. “Let’s order. I want to buy you a dress for dinner tonight, Fleur. Please allow me. Dickie would be so pleased. Jess – you’ll come and help, won’t you?”

  In this quiet restaurant with its bleached tablecloths and gleaming glasses and cutlery nothing seemed quite real to Fleur.

  She thought of Dominic and Joe, with Jason. It was cold now and getting colder. Snow had begun to flurry around. If they went back on the streets again they’d be finding it hard. Soon Sophia would sign a bill for a sum which would be enough to cover two or three weeks’ groceries for a poor family and then they would swan off to try on clothes in stores where even a scarf would cost as much as the meal. Then she would buy Fleur a dress. It all seemed quite easy, quite natural and as if the events of the previous night had never taken place.

  For Fleur they bought a beaded dress in a faded rose colour and a velvet scarf to go with it. Jess, once they’d started shopping in earnest, got herself a flaming chiffon shift and a lot of new make-up, her manner indicating to Fleur that in spite of Adrian’s presence at home in Highgate there was a new man somewhere in the background.

  They went back to Eaton Square in the car and while Sophia was discussing final arrangements for the dinner with the housekeeper Jess plopped down in a chair in the drawing-room by a roaring log fire. She gave a relaxed sigh and said, “I could get used to this.”

  The manservant came in, took out a large arrangement of white and yellow flowers, put them down outside the door and brought in another which he put on a low table by the window.

  “I can see the flowers would be a worry,” Jess continued, “and the seating plan for dinner. Otherwise I think I could cope. Fleur,” she added, “you look miserable. What’s the trouble?”